WASHINGTON — The state-appointed emergency manager who oversaw Flint, Michigan, when its water source was switched to the Flint River says he relied on state and federal experts, but the experts failed him and the city of some 100,000 people.

Darnell Earley says in prepared testimony for the first of two congressional hearings that he was overwhelmed by challenges facing the impoverished city and relied on experts from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to advise him.

Earley says that for months after the April 2014 switch he believed information he was receiving – some of it scientifically complex – was accurate.

But he says in hindsight he should have done more to challenge the experts who told him Flint’s water problems were harmless to human health and geographically limited in nature.

“In relying on experts, the solutions I oversaw failed to ameliorate the troubles plaguing Flint’s water,” Earley says in prepared testimony for a hearing Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

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